Life of Wry

A Ladder Where the Tree Used to Be

Blah.  So disappointed.

Dismantling the tree and packing up Christmas tonight.  That is not the disappointing part.  I’m happy, more than happy, to wrap it up for the year.  Though tedious, I’m ok with returning everything to the 7 large boxes that will be stored on shelves high above the master bedroom.

What is disappointing is that the holiday season just feels so desperately wrong and I’m sad that I’m happy that it’s done.  Way too happy.  I dread its coming, I’m glad when it’s over.  That’s just really a bummer, isn’t it?  It’s a month-long sprint to get through a massive list of tasks in a timely manner, and spend a boatload of money, and, when it’s all over… who cares?  It’s just a lot of money and a lot to get through…and what exactly was the value?

While packing things up, I did have this great urge to open all the doors and windows and let the cold, 40-degree air blow through the house, as if to clear it all out, freshen everything, thinking that by doing so, I’d rid the house of over-spent, expectation-laden, fattening, beaten-into-submission energy.  So I did that too… until I got looked askance at.

Sat in Jim’s office and whined until he booted me out.  Said to go write about it, it’s obviously potent.  I said it’s not going to be pretty or nice.  It’s going to ugly up my blog a LOT.  Then I decided what the hell.  I’m the only one who reads it.   [So, I did do that, sat down and wrote furiously about why I hate Christmas.  It was a little more interesting to read before I cleaned it up. If I think that Peter might discover this blog one day, I’ll probably remove this entirely, even this cleaned up version, because he doesn’t need to see his mama completely effing up his memory of Christmas.]

The truth is though, I despair of the repulsive commercialism and consumerism that is Christmas.  Who doesn’t, I know.  Nothing new there.  I’ve grown just so incredibly weary of the holidays and resentful of the expectations, and I know I’m not alone.  But worse, I have felt increasingly angry that I haven’t somehow managed to find some work-around, or been successful in creating some smaller, more personal, more meaningful traditions for my family.  We can do better than this.  It’s my job, because I have a kid, to create what will become his Christmas memory.  I did for a lot of years, but then .. man.. he got older and more single minded and it got harder and more crass. And I grew cynical.  But now I feel like I’ve allowed myself to be taken hostage by my cynicism, and can’t seem to view Christmas as anything but a trial.   And now that’s making me mad.  And I feel like a shitty mom.

This is probably what happens when you have a 12-year old for whom Christmas is about presents.  Only presents.  And who does not really take responsibility for or care about present buying for his family or friends.  Just the getting.  It’s dispiriting, but I don’t blame him, it’s not his fault; he’s 12.

I thought I had this Peter thing figured out a couple months ago, well in advance of Christmas.  I decided to lighten up, accept it as a developmental reality, a very real limitation of his age.  I convinced myself that, developmentally, 12-year olds are simply incapable of truly feeling empathy and compassion, and for them, the magic of Christmas (I only use that term because it’s in all the literature) is beyond them.  For kids–mine anyway–it’s about presents.  So… let’s just let it be that for him and do away with expectations to the contrary.

I figured we could ride it out.  Give him exactly what he wants, make it age-appropriate magic.  I thought we could provide gentle and consistent reminders along the way and by the time he IS old enough to pay more than lip service to the “real meaning of Christmas” he’ll have a pretty good sense of what those things are because he will have heard about them from us.  But no need to beat him over the head with values he simply cannot get his greedy little hands around.  Let’s just go where he is and let him have fantastic, memorable wrapper-ripping fun.

This is what I thought.  I was quite happy with the idea.  But my cynicism still festered, as my cheery ideas for this event or that activity were assaulted, one right after the other.  “Do we have to do this?”   “Can I stay home?”

Just my god.

In true beat-self-up fashion, I feel totally responsible for Peter’s lack of empathy and compassion.  We should have done a better job of teaching him what this, Christmas, and life in our world is all about.  Nobody said it would be easy to teach kids values, but it is still our responsibility to raise them to be reverent, kind, honorable, compassionate humans.  I do realize that a lot of activities that we might foist upon him hold no meaning–let’s say serving food at the annual Community Meal, or delivering presents to needy children, or donating his old toys to the shelter, or, as a family, choosing a charity and sending money, or volunteering or whatever.  Believe me, at one time or another, we’ve tried.  It’s all been a part of our holiday effort, feeble though it’s become.  Feeble because I didn’t keep it up; it felt forced and it became easier not to suffer through it again.  Felt like an empty gesture, so, after a while, I gave up.

[Never mind that life is about kindness and giving, not just December.  A topic for another time… today, it’s a Christmas themed rant.]

So there’s that.  And then there’s this:

Since I’m the mom, the organizer, the social coordinator for our small tribe, I bear most of the brunt of Christmas chores, and I’m utterly anal about it.  I recycle the same to-do list every year, making small adjustments and updating the deadlines.  It’s 7 pages long and very comprehensive–takes me through gift ideas, shopping lists, decorating, baking, wrapping, shipping, cards.. all of it, right down to thank you notes.  I can get plenty of satisfaction out of getting it all done, ridiculously, but, really, is this what it’s come to?  Project management?

And then there’s the guilt.

I feel really guilty for having such a bad attitude.  “What can I do to make it better?” Jim genuinely asks like a true and willing problem solver.  And I think to myself, when did I get to be such a downer?  Maybe I’ve made this more complicated than it is.  Really, how hard is it to find the joy?  Really?  This is what we have to complain about?  Do what you enjoy, enjoy it, and leave the rest.  Want to give? Give.  Want to bake? Bake.  Want to not spend so much money on superfluous gifts?  Don’t.  Don’t want to haul 7 large boxes out and decorate the house?  Don’t do it.  Oh, wait, you do want to?  Well, then do it, and shut up.  Am I taking my cynicism too seriously?  Has it become a rote response to the season’s crassness?  I think maybe it has.

Lighten up.  It’s the season of light, right?    Will Peter grow up and mature and eventually get it?  Probably.  Maybe not in my lifetime, but just keep putting it out there; it might penetrate on some level, sometime.   Let’s just stop with the attitude.  Move on.

It’s not that parts of it aren’t lovely.  I could write about all the stuff that works, because a lot of it does; there really are some gatherings and events and activities that are truly enjoyable.  Maybe I’ll write about these sometime.  But that doesn’t take away from the fact that so much of it is just not right.  They’ve screwed the whole damn thing up.  But maybe we can deal.

When I started writing this, I was in a very marginal state of mind.  It seems now that passion has morphed into calm.  Angst  has turned philosophical.  And in deference to future generations, I’ve edited out most of the swearing.  This isn’t the blog I started two nights ago…which in some ways is too bad.  But in other ways, I may have worked out a few things.   Blog as therapy.  Today, the 7 boxes are repacked and replaced on the shelf high above, the house is clean and free of Christmas clutter, and the sun’s out, so, you know, it seems better.  I’m thinking that if December is just going to keep rolling around, year after year, it’s going to have to be a season that we all look forward to, and a time that we all look back on with happiness and satisfaction.

So it goes. We’ll see about 2011.